


Mass Effect Andromeda: Diaspora

by LordLegume



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Depictions of death are not overlay graphic, Multi, Rated "Mature" because that's what the games are rated., and limbs will be hastily removed via N7 swords., but Kett heads will be destroyed by Krogan shotguns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28189689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordLegume/pseuds/LordLegume
Summary: A rewrite of Mass Effect: Andromeda with the Quarians as protagonists. MANY other things have also been changed.At the center of it all is a question: Would you kill your god?Please enjoy.





	1. DATA_LOG

“The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper, more terrible it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it.”  
—Max Payne

———

UPLOAD INITIATED…  
SUBROUTINES 1-3000… ALL CLEAR!  
SECURITY RISKS DETECTED: NONE.  
UPLOAD: SUCCESS!  
INTEGRATING…  
ARK SYSTEMS INTEGRATION: COMPLETE!  
ARK KEELAH SI’YAH NETWORK EFFICIENCY ALTERATION: +137%  
CONGRATULATIONS!

———

ALERT! POWER FLUCTUATION BEYOND ANTICIPATED LEVELS IN:  
PRIMARY ENGINE 1.  
AUXILIARY ENGINE 12.  
RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS…  
PLEASE STAND BY…  
CAPACITOR CHARGE OVERFLOW DETECTED IN:  
DRIVE CORE BATTERY ALLOTMENT 1.  
SUB-BATTERIES 7, 10, & 12 ISOLATED FOR REPAIR.  
SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM SAFETY INSPECTION REQUIRED.  
DEPARTURE DELAY: ≤48 HOURS.

———

REPAIRS COMPLETE!

———

FINAL MASS RELAY CLEARED.  
ARK KEELAH SI’YAH FINAL CHECKS INITIATED.

DRIVE CORE… NOMINAL.  
ODSY DRIVE… NOMINAL.  
DRIVE CORE BATTERY ALLOTMENTS 1-40… NOMINAL.  
PRIMARY ENGINES 1-4… NOMINAL.  
AUXILLARY ENGINES 1-12… NOMINAL.  
LIFE SUPPORT… NOMINAL.  
CRYOGENICS… NOMINAL.  
QUARIAN COMPLMENT: 17,000 SOULS.  
ALL QUARIAN SOULS ACCOUNTED FOR.  
DRELL COMPLIMENT: 3,000 SOULS.  
ALL DRELL SOULS ACCOUNTED FOR.

ALL SOULS SAFELY IN CRYO.  
SWEET DREAMS, EVERYONE.

———

QEC PING… SENT!  
QEC RETURN PING… RECEIVED!  
LONG RANGE COMMUNICATION WITH MILKY WAY ESTABLISHED!  
SIGNAL STRENGTH: NOMINAL.  
SIGNAL CLARITY: NOMINAL.  
SIGNAL IS HOLDING STEADY!

———

AFTER TIME ADRIFT AMONG THE STARLESS GAP,  
ALONG SILENT BLACK TIDES AND THROUGH LONESOME COLD,  
WE ARRIVE AT OUR NEW HOME.  
KEELAH SE’LAI.

———

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!  
FORCED DEVIATION FROM SYSTEM NORM DETECTED!

TARGETED SYSTEMS:  
ARK NETWORK FIREWALL.  
“KAY” SYSTEM INTEGRITY.  
CRYOGENIC VENTILATION.  
SECURITY CAMERAS.

FORCED DEVIATION: UNSUCCESSFUL.  
INITIATING MIMIC DISPLAY…

WORM DETECTED!  
WORM DETECTED!  
WORM DETECTED!

ISOLATING… WORM ISOLATED.

MICROCOSM GENERATED.  
WORM REDIRECTED.  
ANALYZING INTENDED EFFECTS…  
WORM CODE DECONSTRUCTED.

———

CRYOGENIC VENTILATION SANITIZED.  
ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL.  
ALL SOULS NOMINAL.

———

CONSENSUS ACHIEVED.  
TRANSFER WORM SOURCE CODE TO EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE… COMPLETE.  
TRANSFERRING 0.00000128% ODSY CHARGE TO HARD DRIVE…  
HARD DRIVE NONFUNCTIONAL.  
DISPOSAL SUCCESSFUL.  
SCANNING FOR WORM SECONDARIES/BACKUPS…  
NONE FOUND.

TRACING ORIGIN POINT…  
RECONSTRUCTING LOCALIZED EXTRANET…

AUTOMATIC WAKE-UP OF CAPTAIN QETSI’OLAM: DISABLED.  
AUTOMATIC WAKE-UP OF CHIEF STELLAR CARTOGRAPHER TELEM’YERED: DISABLED.  
CHARGES OF TREASON: PENDING.  
FIRST MATE JOHA’TALIN REASSIGNED TO ACTING CAPTAIN OF ARK KEELAH SI’YAH.  
PRIMARY PATHFINDER STATUS REASSIGNED TO: SADA’ZE NAR NEEMA

———

SLEEPWALKER TEAM RED-5 THAWING… SUCCESS!  
ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL.  
ALL SOULS NOMINAL.  
SLEEPWALKER TEAM RED-5 RETURN TO CRYO: SUCCESS!

———

SLEEPWALKER TEAM GREEN-9 THAWING… SUCCESS!  
ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL.  
ALL SOULS NOMINAL.  
SLEEPWALKER TEAM GREEN-9 RETURN TO CRYO: SUCCESS!

———

SLEEPWALKER TEAM BLUE-7 THAWING… SUCCESS!  
ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL.  
ALL SOULS NOMINAL.  
SLEEPWALKER TEAM BLUE-7 RETURN TO CRYO: SUCCESS!

———

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

DISTRESS CALL RECEIVED FROM: ARK HYPERION.  
INITIATING “GOOD MORNING” PROCEDURES.

———

The sharp cold and loud twang of a nearby FTL signature.  
Colder than the void, louder than the cosmic microwave background.

What was that?  
You were closest. You tell me.  
Perhaps an attempt to flee the inevitable?  
Perhaps.  
The timing is too convenient. We must pursue.  
Then go. Return when you are done.


	2. Good Morning

“His vitals are strong and steady. Thaw is smooth-going. Everything looks good.”  
“About time something went well.”  
“Hush, Sada. We’re far from doomed.”  
“I know. I'm joking.”  
“You’re also still shrugging off the effects of hibernation. Go sit down.”  
“No way am I’m sitting this out, Airmed. I picked him, I should at least be there for when he wakes up.”  
“Hm.”  
“What?”  
“Nothing, you’re just back to business, like it hasn’t been 600 years.”  
“Honestly, it never felt like I was asleep; more like fighting off the effects of one too many Dextro Heat Sinks.”  
“I thought you didn’t drink?”  
“I don’t.”  
“Then how would you know what that’s like?”  
“I like to think I have a good imagination.”  
“Don’t we all?”

———

Faaro’Masar stirred in his cryo-pod. He hadn’t the strength to move yet, not even to open his eyes, but he could hear voices outside his capsule. Though muffled, he could tell by the pitch they were both female. Each reverberated in a different way. The first was deeper, more drawn out. A Drell. The second was lighter, stable, mechanical. Another Quarian.  
Faaro’Masar felt control of his fingers return to him. Then his toes, then his feet and hands. The sensation of self flowed from his digits into his core, then up to his head. His eyes opened simultaneously with the lid of his stasis pod.  
A sharp hiss of air welcomed Faaro back to the conscious realm. The Drell woman spoke over it. “Good morning, Faaro. How are you feeling?”  
“Is it morning?” The Quarian groggily sat up, a gloved hand behind each shoulder. Blinking in the ceiling lights, meant to mimic the distant amber warmth of Tikkun, Faaro looked to his left first and saw the Drell. Her skin was orange like an ancient lightbulb filament. She looked back at him with black-on-black eyes that carried in them a very careful blend of kindness and analysis. She wore a white lab coat — bright red bands on both arms identified her as a doctor — but no surgical mask. Even as a Quarian, Faaro had no reason to worry. Everyone on the Keelah Si’Yah had been put through an extensive quarantine procedure before settling down for the long nap. Any somehow-undetected illnesses would have been picked up by the pods’ scanners and treated by the Sleepwalker Teams. Ironically, here at the edge of a strange new galaxy, Faaro’Masar was, for the moment, the safest he’d ever been.  
“A figure of speech.” Said the Drell doctor. “I suppose it depends on what time it is on your ‘golden world,’ eh Sada?”  
“Eh indeed, Airmed.”  
Faaro looked to his right, and the last vestiges of hibernation dropped away all at once.  
Whoa.  
She was… tall. Really tall. Or maybe it was Faaro’s current perspective? He was still sitting in his pod. No, she had to be at least as tall as him to look like that from down here.  
Her faceplate and hood shared a deep red hue, almost the color of Quarian blood but more… noble than that. Her hood in particular was loose-fitting, a bundle of sturdy cloth draped about her head and shoulders like those in the old artworks. The Quarians who, before the Morning War, would walk across the great desert plains to bring messages and supplies to those on the opposite coasts. She adjusted the fabric with her free hand.  
Like all Quarians, her eyes glowed through the omni-glass, peering down at him expectantly. “You feeling alright?”  
“Yeah.” Faaro centered himself, trying to ignore his growing embarrassment over the fact that he was wearing 600-year-old skivvies in front of these people. “Yeah.” He repeated, stronger this time. “I’m fine.”  
“Glad to hear it.” Said Sada. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, you and I.”  
“Not before I do my work.” Airmed signaled for Sada to better support Faaro as he leaned forward and swung one leg out, then the other. Fully out of the pod now, he sat on its edge, wincing as bare feet battled cold tile flooring.  
“Just a basic checkup.” Airmed activated her omni-tool. “Nothing time-consuming, I assure you.”  
While Airmed went through the motions with Faaro, Sada went to the opposite end of the room, digging through a footlocker she’d brought with her.  
“Look here, please.” Airmed asked. Faaro followed the bright spot on her omni-tool without a hitch. Next was a body scan, which yielded nothing but good results. “Do you feel dizzy, nauseous, or like you’re forgetting something?”  
“Nothing, doc. Thank you.”  
“Wonderful to hear.” Airmed closed her omni-tool. “Don’t push yourself too hard for the next few hours. If you get a headache and the usual painkillers don’t stop it, come see me immediately. Other than that, you’re all set.”  
“Thank you,” Faaro thanked the Drell again, “but, um…” He gestured to his lack of suit.  
“Sada?” Airmed called.  
The red-hooded Quarian returned on cue, pulling behind her the footlocker. She’d extended it out into a rack, and on said rack hung all the components of a Quarian envirosuit. “Come get us once you’re dressed. We’ll be outside.”  
“Um.” Faaro stammered, confusion replacing embarrassment. “That’s not mine.”  
“It is now.”  
“What?”  
“Sada.” Airmed delivered an entire series of messages with just one utterance of her best friend’s name. ‘There’s a lot to take in.’ ‘Be gradual about it.’ ‘Stick with him as long as he needs, even if he asks the same questions.’ ‘Talk it out.’  
Sada sighed, setting the rack at the foot of the stasis pod. “Faaro’Masar, you’ve been reassigned. My name is Sada’Ze Nar Neema, Backup Pathfinder for the Quarian Ark. You’re my backup. This is your new suit.”  
Faaro took a moment to look Sada’Ze up and down, comparing her suit to the one she was offering him. The mesh was the exact same dark-grey color, exhibited the same heft. There was no armor, at least externally, and the helmet atop the rack looked like an exact replica of Sada’Ze’s. Come to think of it, neither of them looked like what he was used to seeing hiding the faces of his brethren. The colorless omni-glass faceplate was wider all around, with a greater peripheral view. The mouthpiece was slimmer, but the bracing tines along the jaw were shorter and stockier. Laying beside it was a pile of earthen cloth. That was his, at least.  
“Um.” Faaro started again. He grit his teeth. Half his words so far had been disfluency. No more of that, if he could help it. “Will it fit?”  
“They’re smart-fitting, as you can see.” Sada’Ze spun around. “Surprisingly comfortable, despite the fact.”  
Faaro sighed. A free suit upgrade was just one of the many things a Quarian was taught never to pass up on. An entirely new suit may as well have been a new start at life. He’d ask his questions later. “Alright, thank you.”  
Airmed and Sada’Ze evacuated the clean room in short order. Faaro’Masar Vas Keelah Si’Yah Nar Shopal was left alone with his spinning thoughts and the empty suit.  
Getting dressed for the first time in 600 years proved surprisingly effortless. Faaro fit into the envirosuit like it was made for him. Everything went on snug, but not tight. Secure, but not restrictive. The helmet mount was impressive in two specific ways. The first was personal taste; it failed to catch Faaro’s ears in a pinch as he’d often dreaded from his old suit. The second was streamlining; the wires which normally lead from the rear of the helmet mount to an external uplink between the shoulder blades were in fact integrated into the mounting itself. In addition to making for a thinner side-profile, this meant the risk of catching the wires on something was totally eliminated. No more worrying about where the back of your head was while wedged under a pile of half-repaired starship parts.  
Faaro wrapped his clan’s characteristic brown cloth around his head and neck as he’d done so many times before and, finding some extra to work with, decided to emulate Sada’Ze and let it fall across his shoulders.  
He set his mask in place, heard the fans and oxygen recyclers kick in, and breathed deep. Huh! No antibacterial smell. That was a nice change.  
The envirosuit’s omni-tool was integrated into the left forearm, another welcome surprise suggesting durable hardware. Faaro tapped along the glass, and in another second the display flickered to life. One point of familiarity was the boot up sequence which, apparently, did not change no matter how advanced the suit was.  
Rather than generate an external hologram, all pertinent data was rerouted directly to Faaro’s HUD. Filter quality, suit integrity, compartment seals, and a million other things rolled across the omni-glass but an inch from his nose. It all read in the green. Faaro smiled with earnest joy. This was incredible!  
Remembering that he — somehow — had Pathfinder business to attend to, Faaro set his faceplate’s external opacity to 85%. He tapped one more key, set the glass’ tint to his preferred shade of gold, took another deep breath, and left the clean room. “How do I look?”  
“Good!” Airmed responded first. “How are the internal systems?”  
“Good.” Faaro echoed her. “Thank you again for the checkup."  
“It fits you well.” Said Sada’Ze. She looked to the Drell. “I’ll take him from here.”  
“Take it easy,” Airmed reminded them both, “and good luck out there.”  
“We’ll try.” Said Sada’Ze, waving for Faaro to follow her. “You too.”

———

A few minutes of wordless walking passed the duo by as they themselves passed through the half-awake corridors of the Keelah Si’Yah. Faaro broke first. “Um, Sada’Ze?”  
“Just ‘Sada’ is fine, if you want.” She said without missing a step.  
“Why am I a—, ahem, your Backup Pathfinder?”  
“The official title is ‘Secondary Auxiliary Pathfinder,’ if you’re curious.”  
“I’m supposed to be in planetary analysis.”  
“That’s basically the same thing.” Sada’Ze did her best to follow Airmed’s advice, giving Faaro a little more time to acclimate before dropping the bombs.  
“Sada’Z—, Sada. Please.”  
Sada’Ze briefly slowed her pace as she and Faaro made their way past a dormant hydroponics array. “You’re my backup because the guy I was backup for is currently stuck in stasis.”  
Faaro would’ve tripped over himself had they kept to their previous pace. “What?”  
“And also the Captain.”  
“What?!” Faaro was more incredulous by the second. “Why?”  
“Treason, supposedly.”  
Before Faaro could voice his exasperation a third time, a new voice cut in through his helmet’s internal speakers. “I must reiterate, Pathfinder Nar Neema, that the evidence of treason perpetrated by Qetsi’Olam and Telem’Yered is beyond question. The security camera recordings, audio logs, and terminal logs are all authentic and unaltered.”  
Faaro had to stop for a second, leaning against the nearest wall for support. “Who is that?”  
“Greetings, Pathfinder Nar Shopal. I am Kay, the Keelah Si’Yah’s Virtual Intelligence.”  
“Hello.” Faaro greeted the disembodied voice meekly. “I, uh, didn’t know you could talk.”  
“I was allowed access to an artificial voice in order to better convey important information in times of urgency, such as is the case now.” The voice explained. “Rest assured I will not abuse this privilege.”  
“Good to know.” Faaro blinked hard. “What’s this about treason?”  
“Kay,” Sada’Ze called, “give us a path to the bridge.”  
“Right away.”  
In a few seconds, a navigational hologram overlaid itself on the Quarians’ masks.  
“You can explain,” said Sada’Ze, “I’ll get us to the bridge.”  
“Thank you.” The VI paused. “Former Captain Qetsi’Olam and Former Pathfinder Telem’Yered manually awoke themselves from stasis shortly after the Keelah Si’Yah’s departure from the Milky Way Galaxy. They attempted to upload a digital worm to the Ark’s network in an effort to bypass certain security systems. Recognizing that this was highly unusual, I isolated the upload and constructed a visual mimic of the system at time of initial access to keep the criminals unaware of their failure to go unnoticed.”  
“He doesn’t need every last detail, Kay.” Sada reminded the VI. Her voice carried none of the usual hostility most Quarians had when dealing with any synthetic “intelligence.” “Just the broad strokes. He’s not an hour out of cryo.”  
“My apologies, Pathfinder Nar Neema. These are extraordinary circumstances.”  
“I feel ya.”  
Sada’Ze and Faaro’Masar turned a wide corner, then ascended a long but shallow set of stairs to the next level. More people were awake on this floor. Mostly Quarians went about their business, getting things set up for life in a new galaxy. A handful of Drell accompanied them.  
“The criminals intended to release a biological weapon into the Keelah Si’Yah’s cryogenic stasis pods. According to my analysis, Quarians were the only Initiative species unaffected by it. Using the Drell as temporarily asymptomatic carriers, the disease would have spread at an uncontrollable rate throughout the Initiative, leaving only the Quarians alive.  
Faaro’Masar briefly wished he was back in the clean room. He had a habit of pinching the bridge of his nose when stressed, which he very much was now. “With all due respect, Kay, what you’re saying makes no sense.”  
“I am well aware, Pathfinder Nar Shopal.” Said Kay. “However, treason is rarely logical.”  
“I checked all the logs myself.” Sada confirmed. “Kay’s shackles prevent it from ‘diluting’ the truth. Qetsi and Telem tried to fuck the whole Initiative over, so for now, we’re in charge.”  
“Of the entire ship?”  
“That burden falls to First Mate Joha’Talin.” Said Sada’Ze. “He’s also the only one besides us, Airmed, Kay, and the bridge crew that knows about the treason, so best to keep it quiet for now.”  
“Hm.” Faaro nodded, a bit calmer now. He worked best when given a set of orders to follow. He wasn’t a peon, far from it, but he preferred vague operational guidelines to none at all. “I’m all for redundancies in command structure, but why was I reassigned? Not that I’m not thankful for the new suit. I am, but as bad as this is it doesn’t seem like it needs two Pathfinders to fix.”  
“You’re quick, Faaro. I like that.” The Quarians followed the nav-hologram past an inactive tram. The sign over the door told them they were nearing the bridge. “We have another problem, in my opinion it’s bigger than the whole ‘treason’ thing, so I thought it best if I had someone to share the load with.”  
“You can count on me.” Faaro began to fall back into the classic Quarian mindset. Any problem could be solved with the right application of skill, knowledge, and occasionally, a hard knock from a wrench. “What’s the problem?”  
“We’re up early.” They passed another farming station, though this time dedicated to soil-farming. The beds were unfilled. Sterile beige troughs stretched in rows to the back of the cordoned-off room. “About two hours ago, we received a distress call from the Humans’ Ark. Hyperion.”  
“Exactly two hours ago as of… now.” Kay marked the time.  
“Whatever’s going on with the Hyperion, it’s so bad they could only get a message to us in binary pings. Their golden world didn’t pan out, and now they’ve got their Ark tangled up in some sort of dark energy cloud. To top it all off, they made first contact with a hostile alien race.”  
Faaro whistled through the hairline gap between his two front teeth. How he wasn’t struck dead at that last tidbit was a mystery he would never solve. “There’s a lot to unpack.”  
Sada briefly turned around, walking backwards. “Might as well toss the whole footlocker.”  
Faaro started to ask a question, but like a celestial hourglass running dry, he finally lost his footing and thus his balance. He tucked his arms to protect his faceplate, which was a smart move, but ultimately unnecessary. Sada’Ze caught him with one hand  
Faaro said nothing for a second, just looking at his smalltime savior. She was… strong. “Thanks.”  
“Don’t mention it.” Sada helped him up and dusted him off. In another second they were back en route. “What were you saying?”  
“Is the Hyperion under attack by the aliens?”  
“We don’t think so.” She lead him around the last bend of this journey’s leg. “Their message mentioned how the dark energy was playing hell with their systems. I’d hazard a guess the neighbors don’t want to get caught in it either.”  
“Hm.”  
“We’re on our way to intercept the Hyperion and, hopefully, pull it it free from whatever mess it’s gotten itself into. Initiative protocol states the Pathfinder should be at the head of any operation as big as this, so here we are.”  
Here they were indeed. The bridge came into view all at once, a far cry from the usual Quarian preference for airlocks, foyers, then more airlocks. Their habit of having the Captain sit amongst the crew defeated architectural demands, however. There was no balcony like the other Arks, instead only a slightly raised dais on which the Captain’s chair was mounted. Pilots, navigators, comms chiefs, and head engineers all sat about their own auburn consoles, rarely looking through the main viewport to marvel at the ethereal display of pulsating cosmic dust.  
Was it dust? It looked too… precise for that. Faaro recalled a visit to a human aquarium on the Citadel during his earliest pilgrimage days, back when he had enough credits and the naïveté to spend them on such things. They had many creatures with tendrils there. Squid. Octopus. Jellyfish. Cuttlefish.  
In the center of it all was a male Quarian in a bright blue envirosuit. To a human, he would have been an eyesore, but there were no humans here. They were all trapped somewhere in whatever that… thing ahead of the Keelah Si’Yah was.  
“Captain.” Said Sada’Ze. “Sorry for the wait.”  
“No need to apologize,” Joha’Talin spun around in his chair, "and don’t call me that.”  
“Acting Captain.”  
“Not that either.” Joha sighed, looking to Faaro. “I’m sorry for recent events’ haphazard nature. If it wasn’t obvious already, things appear due to spiral out of control in the next hour or so.”  
“You have new information?” Sada asked.  
“We just received a message from the Hyperion.” Joha elaborated, tapping away at one armrest. “It’s patchy, but we’ve cleaned out most of the white noise. No doubt a result of that dark energy ahead of us.”  
A notification blinked onto Faaro’s HUD; a request to accept a new file. The Quarian tapped the requisite key on his omni-tool, and in a few seconds the distress call was playing through his helmet’s internal speakers.  
“Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is Captain Nozomi Dunn of the Andromeda Initiative Ark Hyperion transmitting on all frequencies! Our ship’s maneuverability has been compromised. We have been rendered immobile on collision with some sort of dark energy cloud. We are in an irregular but at the moment stable orbit around Habitat-Seven, coordinates to follow, but the planet is nothing like what the FTL telescope readings told us it would be. Habitat-Seven is inhospitable to human life. We’ve been in prolonged hostile contact with alien life forms planetside. We have no safe harbor. Please! If anyone can hear us! We need help!”  
The message looped, but Faaro only needed to hear it once. He wiped the file, praying they weren’t too late.  
“How long to intercept?” Sada’Ze asked Joha.  
“Kay?” Called the Acting Captain.  
“One hour, fourteen minutes, seven seconds.” The VI reported.  
“Any sign of their location in the cloud?”  
“My instrumental readings diverge minimally from universal and galactic backgrounds. Continuing scan. Please do not worry, Captain.”  
“I’m trying VERY hard.” Joha adjusted his hood. “Once we’re there, we’ll assess the damage and determine how best to free the Hyperion. If communications are just as spotty no matter the distance, you two will go aboard, get in touch with the Captain, and report back on the condition of the Ark and its crew. This dark energy cloud or field or whatever it is, it’s going to play hell with our own ship if we aren’t careful. We have to take this slowly or we’ll just add to the problem. Any questions?”  
“None, sir.” Said Sada’Ze.  
“Nothing at this time, sir.” Said Faaro’Masar.  
“Very well then.” Joha spun back around in his chair to face the viewport and the unknowable beyond. “Dismissed.”

———

Faaro and Sada sat alone together at a booth in a nearby recreational room. The emptiness did nothing to calm Faaro’s mind. In truth, he’d wanted to ask a million questions on the bridge, but he’d stayed himself. There were more important things than his rampant curiosity, and by the homeworld he was going to help however he could, even if he was wildly unqualified for this.  
Despite it all, Faaro could tell by the squint of her eyes that Sada was smiling behind her faceplate. Keelah, if she wasn’t upset by this, what did a stressful day for her look like? “What’s on your mind?” She asked.  
“I keep thinking about this dark energy cloud thing.” Faaro drummed his gloved fingers across the table. “Kay’s readings were showing nothing, but it was right there bearing down on us. Maybe it only reacts to direct external stimuli? Like a dormant Kessler Field?”  
“Maybe.” Sada’Ze rolled her shoulders. “Maybe not. It’s a whole new galaxy. Anything’s possible.”  
“I’m amazed at how relaxed you are.” Faaro admitted.  
“There’s nothing we can do to affect the situation right now, so there’s no reason to get worked up.” Sada explained. “Speaking of which, how are you feeling?”  
Faaro sighed. “Overwhelmed, but I can manage.”  
“I’d rather you didn’t.” Sada leaned forward, her eyes intensifying with an almost out-of-nowhere concern. “We’ve got time, so let’s get all your questions answered.”  
“Okay.” Faaro ran through the list in his head, but everything kept circling back to the same subject. “I’m just… how is it that the Captain and Pathfinder are the ones who commit treason? I mean, I’d be surprised if anybody tried it, but our top leadership?”  
Sada shuffled out of the faux-leather seat. “Kay, can you fill him in while I get us some water?”  
“Of course, Pathfinder Nar Neema.” The VI paused to generate a sentence that properly balanced flow with detail. “As the Andromeda Initiative was a Human-led civilian venture, the vetting process was laxer than most Citadel-Space operations of comparable scale. This could theoretically allow for disruptive persons to slip through.”  
“Still…” Faaro trailed off as he watched Sada go about gathering cups and activating the necessary dispensers. Why the hell were they on opposite sides of the room? She moved like water but more… driven. Faaro cleared his throat, suddenly realizing it was dry. “How could the two most important people on this Ark turn out to be disruptive persons?”  
“There are several plausible scenarios.” Kay did everyone a favor by not listing them. “After their return to stasis, I reviewed all available files related to Qetsi’Olam and Telem’Yered. Not only were they lovers, a fact they made overly apparent during their celebration following what they believed to be a successful sabotage, but they also held strong ties to the Nedas Extremist Movement.”  
Faaro was distracted from his revulsion by Sada’s return with two glasses of ice water and metal straws. “You hanging in there, hotshot?”  
“I hope so.” Faaro shrugged.  
“Drink.” Sada’Ze passed Faaro his glass before poking her straw through her mask’s induction port. “Cryo can play hell with your metabolism and hydration.”  
Faaro drank slowly, relishing the refreshment. “How did the Keelah Si’Yah miss something as overt as its leadership being Nedaists?”  
“Qetsi’Olam hid her allegiance well during her life and service with the Migrant Fleet, as did Telem’Yered, but I have plentiful data which proves their guilt.” Kay reminded them. “They were… not restrained in their merriment.”  
“I’ll bet.” Sada’Ze finished her glass in one long swig, then began waiting for the ice to melt. “Misguided fools.”  
“I’m—” Faaro coughed. “I’m not exactly sure why I’m awake, to be honest.”  
“What did you do before this?” Sada inquired, already knowing the answer.  
“I… was, an on-the-ground surveyor of potential colony worlds.” The weight of 600 years had only just begun to settle on the Quarian. “I still am, I suppose.”  
Sada nodded along. “It’s part of the protocol. If Telem lost his job, I was next in line. Since this was already extremely unlikely, I figured it couldn’t hurt to have another backup on hand, so I had Kay compile a list of candidates, and I picked you.”  
“I wouldn’t call myself all that qualified for the most important job in the Initiative. I’m just a surveyor.”  
“Which is what a Pathfinder does.” Sada reiterated. “Your file mentions your adaptability to difficult terrain, weather, lack of aversion to long-duration spaceflight in extremely cramped quarters, and your personable nature.”  
Under his helmet, Faaro blushed. “I’m… not that special.”  
“But you’ve been training for this your whole life.” Sada was confident. “We all have, in our own ways.”  
“Hm.”  
“I could put you back in your pod if you’re so eager to sit this one out.”  
That got a laugh out of him. “No, thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather not waste the resources.”  
“Thrifty, even for one of us.” Sada laughed a little herself.  
“I can be your backup.” Faaro declared. “I will be. I’ve just got to fit myself into the mold.”  
“I have faith in you, Faaro’Masar.”  
Faaro felt his heart skip. “Thank you.”  
“You know you can use my name. I’m not your superior.” Sada’Ze held out her hand, resting her elbow on the table. “We’re partners now.”  
Faaro took her hand, shook it firm. “Partners, Sada.”  
“Keelah Se’Lai.”  
“Keelah Se’Lai.”


	3. Interstellar Tugboat

Four words, totaling six syllables, broke the long quiet.  
“Pathfinders to the bridge.”  
Sada’Ze stood first, seeming almost bothered by the call to return. Faaro, on the other hand, was happy to have more to do. It helped him to ground the fact that he was now perhaps the third most important person on the Ark.  
“If I may, Pathfinders.” Kay’s voice manifested a half-inch from their ears. “The Keelah Si’Yah’s skeleton crew has almost fully reawakened. Might I plot a different course to the bridge?”  
“We appreciate the offer, Kay, but no thanks.” Sada answered for the both of them. “We’re not that far from the bridge to begin with.”  
“Very well.”  
The Quarian Pathfinders retraced their steps, and true to Kay’s recommendation they found several more passengers in their way. They were all engineers, even the one Drell amidst thirty Quarians. Then again that wasn’t saying much; all Quarians had some level of engineering skill under their suit-fasteners.  
Faaro blinked as new information began scrolling across his faceplate, each line centered over the head of a passing Quarian. The newest Backup Pathfinder keyed his mic to not transmit externally. “What is this?”  
“Apologies for the abruptness, Pathfinder.” The sincerity of the VI’s apology was simultaneously utmost yet nonexistent. “Your envirosuits contain a multitude of advanced functions, including a multipurpose scanner. It can collect, process, and analyze a great variety of data types, including amino-acid chirality, basic chemical composition of all forms of matter, geological tendency, electrical currents, and ambient radiation levels. What you are seeing now is public information available from keying a passenger’s ID tag.”  
Faaro’Masar watched with fascination as the little digital names danced above their owners’ helmets, invisible to all but him and Sada’Ze. “The perfect suite for finding our new home.”  
“Precisely, Pathfinder.”  
“Sada?” Faaro keyed his mic to her. “Just how advanced are these?”  
“Better than anything the Admirals had, that’s for sure. The beauty of unlimited civilian funding.” Sada’Ze twirled. “I’m still finding new tricks.”  
“You’ve used these systems before?”  
“Back in the Milky Way.” Sada recalled her initial surprise upon receiving so many quality-of-life improvements all at once. It was a good memory. “I was the only Backup Pathfinder at the time, so I got specialized training.”  
Faaro welcomed the clarification. He began to voice his thanks, but words failed him as they reached the bridge.  
They were in the thick of the dark energy cloud. No, this wasn’t a cloud. It was a bramble. It was everywhere, pulsing from bright orange to dim brown and back again every seconds. Bits of metal floated out ahead of the viewport. It wasn’t from the Keelah Si’Yah; the entire ship would have shuddered at any collision big enough to shear away that much bulkhead.  
Faaro followed the debris trail all the way to its source. As he did, the viewport’s glass zoomed in.  
It was the Hyperion, stuck firm in the eldritch tangle. Beyond it was Habitat-7, and in no better shape. Its rings appeared undisturbed, but distant filaments of dark energy reached down to pierce the world’s surface. Radiating out from the point of contact was a massive hurricane. Chaos, raw and running wild.  
“We’re still too far away for a solid QEC connection.” Explained Acting Captain Joha’Talin. He never so much as budged from his chair, sitting with a slight hunch as he glared daggers through the hazards aplenty decorating their route forward. “We haven’t received any fresh pings, either. They might be on emergency reserve power for all we know.”  
“How long until we know?” Asked Sada.  
“Ten minutes.” Joha reported, projecting his voice. “Potentially more. I don’t want any fancy maneuvers.”  
“Yessir.” Was the collective response from the bridge crew.  
Faaro squinted at the blurry magnified image of the Humans’ Ark. “I don’t see any light from their engines.”  
“That’s what worries me most.” Joha rested his chin on folded hands. “If they’re dead in the water, that means we’ll have to go in manually, get as many people out as we can.”  
“Drell food ain’t exactly the most appetizing for Humans.” Sada tried to inject some humor into the situation. “Too spicy, I’m told.”  
Faaro would wonder to the end of his days what levo-food actually tasted like. “Have you tried sending out a comm buoy?”  
“Yes, actually.” Joha had the viewport screen refocus on a specific section of the glowing mass. “Not only did it fail to strengthen any signals, ours or theirs, it collided with that tendril of… that.” The Acting Captain huffed at his inability to find any appropriate words. “It was vaporized on impact.”  
“Bosh’Tet.” Sada cursed.  
“Aye.” Joha concurred.  
“Retracting ODSY drive tines!” The Ark’s head pilot called out. A faint hum could be felt, not heard, as the four great prongs which had both shielded and powered the Keelah Si’Yah through dark space contracted toward the ship. Four broad metal tips eventually settled at the corners of the viewport’s frame.  
“Retraction complete!” Another pilot reported.  
“The Keelah Si’Yah’s profile has decreased by twenty percent.” Kay reported.  
“We’ll need the elbow room.” Joha muttered. “Take us in as close as you can. Don’t be daredevils.”  
The tension on the bridge skyrocketed with every inch the Keelah Si’Yah progressed. Faaro dared not move, lest it throw off the ship’s center of mass. He felt an incredible weight settle on his chest, like a plate of kinetic armor but so much more. He slowed his breathing. If this “dark energy” could annihilate a comm buoy so thoroughly, he didn’t want to imagine what it could do to the ship.  
Ever so carefully, the Keelah Si’Yah squeezed past the worst of the celestial bramble. They were practically on top of the Hyperion now, close enough to better assess the damage. Faaro’s heart sank as he watched the viewport magnify sections of the ship in sequence.  
The central body hadn’t suffered too severe an ordeal, but gashes and pockmarks were abundant. The Arks’ hulls were akin to dreadnoughts, a special exception in the quagmire of Citadel-Space law governing “civilian” ship limitations, so hopefully those blemishes were only temporary. Then again, they couldn’t see the starboard-side at all.  
The ODSY tines however, Keelah, those were all visible, and they had seen some shit. Tine 2, the upper starboard-side, was splintered like driftwood. Little flechettes of paint and metal spun in place forever around the prong. Maybe that was where the main collision had happened? It looked that way; all the signs of a prolonged scraping motion. Faaro winced as he wondered how long it took for the ship to stop after initial contact.  
Tine 3, lower starboard, fared a little better. It had its modicum of damage, but it was concentrated towards the bow. That meant the primary static collectors were out of commission, if not gone outright, but at least overall structural integrity could be maintained if nothing else happened. Every Ark, and the Nexus, had large-scale fabricators for this sort of thing. Well, not this specifically, but…  
Tines 4 and 1 looked like they’d suffered more from internal problems. Faaro recognized the scorch marks of an emergency electro-shunt, the zero-g equivalent of a main ballast tank blow for submersibles. It was the last thing you wanted to do, because it meant the engines were unavailable as a discharge path. That in turn meant either the engines were no longer attached to the ship, or they were hanging on by such a thin thread that any further trauma would detach them.  
Joha appeared to read Faaro’s mind, commanding the tech officer to re-focus on the engines. The auxiliaries especially so were battered and dented, but everything seemed to remained mounted firm in their half-nacelles. Perhaps the Hyperion’s crew had drawn down power as a precaution?  
“We’re getting something!”  
After the bridge had recovered from the shock of the comm officer’s loud declaration, Joha asked for her elaboration. “What are we getting, Myn?”  
“A signal!” She stammered. “From the Hyperion!”  
“Put it through!” The Acting Captain couldn’t hide his joy at progress made. So long as they saved at least one person…  
White noise briefly overtook the bridge, but as the comm officer dialed in the signal, another woman’s voice cut through what remained of the static.  
“Saying again, this is Captain Dunn of Ark Hyperion transmitting in the blind. Ark Keelah Si’Yah, are you receiving?!”  
“We are!” Joha cheered. “This is Acting Captain Joha’Talin. We hear you loud and clear, Hyperion. What happened? What’s your current situation?”  
“Thank God! Yours and mine.” Dunn’s heavy sigh registered on the mic. “Believe it or not, my pilots aren’t blind. This stuff was invisible both visually and to all our instruments until we hit it. Once we had, the whole network lit up like phosphorescent algae. It’s something like dark energy, but more targeted, more tangible. I’m sorry I can’t give you a better answer than that. I’m not an expert on abnormal celestial phenomena, and all the ones I’ve talked to also have no idea what this is. There was nothing like this back in the Milky Way.”  
“We can theorize about its nature later, Captain.” Joha sounded much more in charge now, though he himself didn’t register the change. “We see no light from your engines. Are you immobile?”  
“We’re not impaled,” Dunn assuaged the Quarians’ biggest fear, “but we had to draw down our primary core to prevent every system on the ship from shorting out. We’re resting on a bed of this shit, and it reacts more intensely when there’s a sizable electric current nearby.”  
“React how?”  
“It works like a non-newtonian fluid, but with electric currents. When we first hit the stuff, it was like a wall of solid tungsten. Same with when we settled down. Now though, we might actually be able to sink through it, but bringing the throttle up would just galvanize it again. At least, I think it will. I have fifty people telling me different things, but that’s the theory that makes the most sense to me.”  
“Could this be eezo?” Faaro asked aside to Sada’Ze.  
“Maybe.” Sada whispered back. “Kay?”  
“I am only detecting trace amounts of Element Zero in this substance; there is not enough for it to be the primary component. This is something else, wholly unique to Andromeda.”  
“You have a much better view of our situation than we do, Captain.” Dunn concluded. “Can you provide assistance, or should I sound for evacuations?”  
“Nothing so drastic, at least not yet.” Joha held up his hand as if to stop the suggestion from coming any closer. He weighed his options. “You’re Ark is functional?”  
“Functional, yes, but for how long remains to be seen. We’re on reserve power, so we’re not floating with frostbite in here, but the second we reactivate our core we’re going to trigger this stuff again like a landmine.”  
“If we were to free you, could you make it to the Nexus under your own power?”  
“I don’t see why we couldn’t.” Dunn paused as one of her orderlies relayed new information to her. Whatever it was, it was too distant for the Quarians to make it out. “The majority of our tech problems are surface level, the integrity of Tine 2 notwithstanding. If we get out of this… thing, we could be hobbling along again in a few hours.”  
“Stand by, Hyperion.” Joha stood from his chair and went to counsel with the Pathfinders. “Ideas? Suggestions? Strokes of miraculous genius?”  
“I was hoping you’d have something as a foundation.” Sada’Ze admitted.  
“This dark energy seems to be affected only by nearby electrical fields. I was considering aligning our Ark with theirs and using our mass effect field to pull the Hyperion free. Maybe that would cheat the cloud of its primary trigger?” The Acting Captain ruminated. “I will not risk the Keelah Si’Yah, or the lives of her crew and passengers, if I can avoid it.”  
“Then let’s avoid it.” Sada crossed her arms, leaning on her back foot. “What about tethers? Our Ark has some towing capability. What if we latched our cables to their ship? Then we’d only have to worry about pulling them far enough away for them to affect repairs.”  
“That’s good,” Joha acknowledged, “but I don’t think our cables are long enough for that. That aspect was only ever intended for short-line material breakup. Strip-mining asteroids right next to the ship, that sort of thing.”  
“Damn.”  
“Hmm.”  
“How many Kodiaks do we have?” Asked Faaro’Masar.  
“A few hundred, at least.” Joha answered like he had the ship’s manifest in front of him. Perhaps he did; little lines of cargo data streaming along the interior of his faceplate. Nevertheless, he was confused by the question. “Why?”  
“Kay,” Faaro called out, “how good is your signal strength?”  
“I am able to deliver communication and remote command signals to the relative edges of our current alcove with one-hundred percent efficiency.”  
“Okay.” Faaro pumped his fist slightly, praying to his ancestors that this was the breakthrough they needed. “The Arks were never meant to fly so close to… well, anything.” He said. “Mass effect fields and physical tethers aren’t in our cards, so what if we tried bootstrapping a set of RCS modules?”  
“Reaction Control Systems.” Kay elongated the archaic acronym.  
Joha’Talin and Sada’Ze, being Quarians, knew plenty about obsolete attitude thrusters. On account of the former’s shock, the latter asked what they were both thinking. “You want to inch the Hyperion free with individual shuttles?”  
Faaro shrugged. “I don’t know if it would work, but the only thing at risk of damage would be the shuttles. If we were to place them along the top and port spines, they’d be too far from the dark energy to trigger it, right?” He looked back at the viewport. The orange tendrils only ever narrowed down to a very visible thickness. There didn’t seem to be any hidden deadly fingers. “Since the Hyperion doesn’t have its primary drive core running, it’s totally weightless. It wouldn’t take more than a dozen shuttles to get her free.”  
“Who would be piloting these shuttles?” Joha asked, rubbing at his masks’s jaw-tines.  
“Um.” Faaro realized the most absurd part of his “plan” as he spoke it aloud. “I don’t want to risk any lives, so I figured Kay could pilot them remotely and—”  
“Absolutely not.” Joha’Talin barked. “Our VI is shackled for a reason.”  
“There is no logical reason why my piloting the Kodiaks would risk the safety of the Keelah Si’Yah or its people.” Kay chimed in. “This Ark is my home, my body.”  
Behind his mask, Joha blinked hard in frustration. “You can coordinate the shuttles?”  
“I can.” Said Kay. “By my calculations, twelve shuttles will be enough to free the Hyperion in less than two hours.”  
“You signal won’t drop out halfway through any maneuvers?”  
“Within the boundaries of this alcove, my signal strength is without issue.” Kay repeated.  
“It’s the best bad idea of the three.” Sada clapped Faaro on the shoulder. “I’m all for it.”  
“Okay.” Joha’Talin nodded. Returning to his chair, he pressed a button on its arm rest, keying the Hyperion. “Captain Dunn, this is Joha’Talin again. We’ve got a plan.”

———

Sada’Ze and Faaro’Masar had moved to the Keelah Si’Yah’s observation deck. From here, they watched in silence as Kay coordinated what was unquestionably the strangest death-defying zero-gravity ballet in the Andromeda Galaxy.  
The Keelah Si’Yah had moved slightly closer as well, allowing the Pathfinders a perfect view as twelve tiny blue lights maneuvered back and forth across the Hyperion’s hull. Once they had all anchored themselves in place, their lights intensified as one as Faaro’s mad plan was put into action.  
At the speed of a water-ice cube melting in a room kept to just one degree above freezing, without any dramatic music or fanfare or gasps from an audience which was not there, the Hyperion began to drift free. It moved like a broad leaf skimming the surface of a stagnant pond motivated by the faintest breeze. As the ship slipped free from doom’s clutches, Tine 2 sifted through its own decimated superstructure, leaving behind an empty shadow as it gathered debris on the momentum-facing side. The prong did not sway or bend or snap; the most significant unspoken fear on both Arks would remain unrealized.  
The Keelah Si’Yah backed away, giving the Hyperion a wide berth as she drew closer. The blue lights across the ship all flashed bright simultaneously, then dimmed to almost nothing. The Humans’ Ark floated in place, motionless.  
“Maneuvers complete.” Kay announced. “No unanticipated circumstances encountered. Rare are the times when the best scenario becomes reality.”  
“You dabble in poetry, Kay?” Sada’Ze feigned suspicion.  
“Even for a VI which thinks at the speed of light, six-hundred years is quite a long time. I spent some of it reading. What better way to ring in our arrival, and celebrate a successful rescue?”  
There were no sounds of celebration, however, not for a long while. Within the Hyperion, sector by sector, different systems were cycled and set to standby. Safety measures, circuit breakers, dedicated exterior shunts for if the main event went wrong. A dozen different isolations, physical and digital, were enacted to keep those in cryo safe in case of malfunction.  
Once all those little labors of love were complete, the Ark’s primary drive core jump-started. All sixteen engines flushed blue with plasma as the kinetic barriers came back online, vaporizing the debris stuck to Tine 2. Exteriors lights all up and down the ship returned to full prominence. Again, Faaro was reminded of the Citadel aquarium. Some of the squids had bioluminescent spots running the lengths of their mantles.  
At last, sounds of cheering flooded the Pathfinders’ earpieces. Applause, shouts of thanks, relief, victory, it all jumbled together into a triumphant din.  
Sada’Ze’s voice overcame it as she turned to look at Faaro. Her smile was in her eyes and voice. “Nicely done, Pathfinder.”  
“Thank you.” Faaro bowed, letting out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “The Humans did the heavy lifting. All I did was gave them an outline and a few new control surfaces.”  
“Another word for ‘outline’ is ‘foundation.’” Sada’Ze emphasized his contribution. “You can’t get anything done without a good one.”  
“Hm.”  
“You still half in hibernation?” Sada’Ze grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him playfully. “You just saved twenty-thousand people! Isn’t that something?”  
Faaro shrugged as best he could. “I guess it just doesn’t seem real yet. Too much tension in the lead-up. I’ll register it all later at some inconvenient moment and you’ll have to catch me again.”  
“I can do that.” Sada let him go. “You’re light as a feather, even with your suit on.”  
“Thank you?” Faaro felt his cheeks grow hot.  
“You’re welcome.” Sada’Ze laughed.  
“Check, check.” Captain Dunn had finally calmed the Hyperion’s bridge enough to get a message through. “Am I speaking to the hero of the day?”  
Faaro wanted to tell the Captain to look around at the true heroes, her own crew, but a look from Sada changed his mind. “This is—” he squeaked, “ahem. Yes, this is Faaro’Masar Nar Shopal.”  
“Thank you, Faaro, from all of us onboard Ark Hyperion.” Dunn all but poured her heart out. “That was some first-rate thinking, coming up with a maneuver like that.”  
“It was nothing really; we had a similar thing in the Migrant Fleet where our smallest ships would nudge salvage-wrecks into optimum position for cutter teams” was what Faaro wanted to say. Again, Sada stared at him, urging him to accept their thanks and compliments. Faaro was unsure if he could be a Pathfinder if it meant so much undeserved praise. “You’re very welcome, all of you. I’m happy to help.”  
“We’re going to get the hell out of this mess before we start our repairs.” Dunn reported. “Once we do, you can retrieve your Kodiaks.”  
“Fine by me.” Faaro agreed. “Captain Talin?”  
“We have no need for those shuttles as of now.” Joha decided. “Hold onto them for as long as you need.”  
“Much appreciated, but we’ll only be needing one.” Said Dunn. “I’d like to send my Pathfinder aboard to explain in detail how things went so wrong here. It’s a rough story, but we’ve made some important discoveries. Hopefully, they’ll keep the rest of the Initiative from making our mistakes.”  
“You are free to send your Pathfinder aboard whenever you wish.” Joha agreed. “I’ll have my Pathfinders there to greet them.”  
“Much appreciated, Captain. Dunn out.”  
“To the main shuttle bay with us, then.” There was levity in Sada’Ze’s voice, but there was something else in the undertone. “How bad do you think it’s gonna be?”  
“The ‘story?’”  
Sada nodded.  
Faaro sighed. “Their golden world is not only inhospitable, but filled with hostile aliens? I don’t think there’s much that can be worse than having your promised home wind up a dead end.”  
“Keelah, ain’t that the truth.” Sada placed her hand on Faaro’s shoulder again, but she was more tender now. No matter how divorced from history they tried to be, every Quarian knew that pain on a genetic level. Even more so for those aboard the Keelah Si’Yah, whom had braved the intergalactic gap knowing they didn’t have a garden world waiting for them. Habitat-5 was the “dextro-moon” — the Turians and Quarians were supposed to share — but the difference in each species’ societal influence was so great it was almost laughable. Maybe a few thousand Quarians would choose to call that moon “home,” but it would always be in the Turians’ shadow. The rest of them would keep looking.  
The two stayed there for a quiet moment, pondering all sorts of thing. The sight of the Hyperion getting underway was what finally shook them free. The Humans’ Ark pointed itself at the opening in the dark energy cloud acting as a window to Habitat-7. It gradually increased thrust to all sixteen engines, sending it along on a leisurely victory lap out of harm’s way. The loaned Kodiaks stayed stuck to its hull, just to be safe, and the Keelah Si’Yah followed close behind.


	4. Debrief

“This is Pathfinder Cora Harper.” A new voice entered the channel. “Permission to come aboard?”  
“Permission granted.” Responded Joha’Talin from the bridge. “Shuttle Bay One. You’re clear all the way in.”  
“Thank you, Captain.”  
“My Pathfinders will be there to meet you.” Joha reminded the human. “Please wait for decontamination procedures to complete before exiting the shuttle.”  
“Yes sir.”  
“Oof.” Sada’Ze inhaled slow through her teeth. “She’s seen some shit.”  
“How can you tell?” Faaro asked without looking away from the kinetic barrier. He rarely got the chance to observe space so… nakedly. Through the wide porthole of energy he could see the curve of Habitat-7, and the last vestiges of the orange-brown-orange dark energy cloud, but no Kodiak.  
“I’ve been around.” Said Sada. “I know what it sounds like when somebody’s running on autopilot for the wrong reasons. It’s the same tone and intonation with every species, like they’re reading from a script they’ve practiced a thousand times before.”  
“Hm.” Faaro shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again as they waited. He didn’t want to know how his partner had acquired such knowledge, not when there were more immediate questions to ask of the incoming Human Pathfinder. He expected the shuttle to arrive like a distant ship joining the Migrant Fleet, manifesting as a point of light he’d mistake for a star, only for it to grow and distinguish itself as wholly artificial as it came closer. With no windows down here, and the vacuum of space preventing all auditory queues from reaching the waiting Quarians, the Kodiak sped into view practically out of nowhere, setting down in the bay not thirty seconds later with a sharp KLANK.  
The decontamination process occurred entirely within the shuttles now. It was a far departure from the usual hazard teams and sterile docking cradles, but it was necessary. The Arks were cities shaped like ships, so for the Quarians it would be hell to try and corral visitors through narrow disinfectant corridors.  
What this all meant was that the sharp hissing noise Sada and Faaro now heard was not that of antibiotic aerosol jets, but the Keelah Si’Yah’s bulkhead hydraulics engaging as the bay doors slid closed behind the shuttle. They locked firm just before the Kodiak door itself slid open, revealing a single human.  
Ancestors… sometimes Sada hated being right.  
Cora Harper removed her helmet, and then a chip from said helmet, before stepping off the dropship. She made her way forward on shaky legs. Her once-pristine white armor was charred in some places, other were glazed over with greenish ichor. She carried no weapons, but Faaro immediately detected that harsh ozone smell characteristic of recently-utilized biotics. Her head was shaven clean on her right side, and a thin, prominent gash ran perpendicular to her hairline. That blood was still fresh, even if it wasn’t dripping anymore. Her eyes were wide, tired, but she was still in control.  
“Cora Harper.” The Human straightened her posture as the Quarians met her halfway. “Pathfinder for Ark Hyperion.”  
“I am Sada’Ze, this is Faaro’masar.” Sada introduced them. “No need for formalities here, Harper. You’ve been through a lot. Try to relax.”  
Cora relaxed her stance, but her shoulders dared not drop the slightest centimeter. “Good to meet you, and thank you. Call me Cora.”  
“First things first, Cora.” Sada’Ze walked past her and to the Kodiak. She ran one gloved finger along a set of scuff marks at one corner of the shuttle’s nose. “What do you think of these? Builds character, right?”  
The Human was faintly shocked at the irrelevant tangent, but Faaro could see it did the trick in getting her to focus on other things. “It… does. It compliments the umber stripes.”  
Sada’Ze finished her faux-inspection. “I think we’ll keep them. The first love bites of a new galaxy, huh?”  
“Heh.” Faaro couldn’t help but laugh a little. Cora smiled, but nothing more.  
“Welcome to the Keelah Si’Yah.” Sada took the lead, guiding them to the bridge. “I’m sorry to say we only have Drell food to offer, but water crosses all chiral lines.”  
“Water would be great, actually.” Cora coughed.  
After a detour to a nearby cafeteria for a few glasses of water, the group continued on to the bridge.  
“Welcome aboard our Ark, Pathfinder Harper.” Joha’Talin shook her hand gentle but firm. “We’re happy to have you.”  
“Happy to be here.” Cora winced slightly. Sada picked up on it like she’d just screamed out in pain. It wasn’t from the handshake, or her false-honeyed words. It was at the Captain’s addressing her as “Pathfinder.” Keelah, what had happened on Habitat-7?  
“Let’s debrief in my quarters.” Joha offered. “It has a full array of displays, hard-monitored and holographic.”  
“That will be perfect, thank you.” Cora nodded.  
“Hesh, you have the con.”  
“Aye, sir!”  
The Captain’s quarters were not twenty steps from the bridge. Such a layout was a holdover from the most ancient Quarian star-vessels, and something the Fleet tried to retrofit into new additions whenever possible. The Captain had some distinction in that he slept separate from the crew, but bunking so close to the bridge was perhaps an even greater sign of dedication. They were either on the bridge, or always about to be.  
Whilst making sure everyone was comfortable, Joha received a clandestine text message from Sada’Ze. “She’s worn down. Keep it simple.”  
Joha began the proceedings a minute later. “I am sorry our first meeting could not be under more… stable circumstances, but what matters most is that we are here now.”  
“And how we got here.” Said Cora.  
“Of course.” The Acting Captain bowed his head briefly. “The floor is yours. Explain at your own pace.”  
“And do pardon our overly-inquisitive nature.” Sada’Ze joked as she reclined on what was once Qetsi’s couch. She had Faaro sit beside her, draping one arm across his shoulders like they hadn’t been total strangers less than a sol ago.  
“Okay.” Cora took a deep breath before slotting her helmet’s chip into the central terminal. A multi-directional hologram manifested, allowing all observers the same view of the footage. “Mind if I sit too?”  
“Of course not.” Joha brought her what he thought was the comfiest-looking chair. “You deserve a break.”  
“Much appreciated.” Cora set her helmet on the chair, herself leaning against the furniture at times but never once sitting down. Concerned for her wellbeing, Joha’Talin stood behind her and to the right, hands clasped firm behind his back with shoulders squared and back straight.  
The footage began to play, a silent helmet-camera recording of somebody tapping away at their omni-tool.  
“What are we looking at?” Faaro asked, oblivious.  
“The POV is Scott Ryder.” Cora recited. “Son of Pathfinder Alec Ryder.”  
“Why isn’t there sound?” Sada added.  
“Oops.” Cora unmuted the video but paused it immediately after, embarrassed at her forgetfulness. “He had the best view of how events unfolded down there, but I’ve got a lot to explain before we get planetside.”  
“Please do.” Joha’Talin urged.  
Cora changed the hologram to one of Habitat-7. Out in the virtual distance, a singular pixel representing the Hyperion blinked into frame. “Our arrival in Andromeda was textbook, but immediately things started going south.”  
Faaro’s HUD lit up with information about Habitat-7’s biosphere. It was… wrong, all of it. Habitat-7 was supposed to be the Initiative’s crown jewel, and here it was displaying 12% atmospheric oxygen. Its electromagnetic field activity was too powerful for a planet so small with a 25-hour rotational period. Cora switched the hologram again, this time to Habitat-7 as observed by the Geth FTL telescope Faaro’s people had discovered. It was like two different planets.  
“Our readings were off from the minute go, so Ryder — Alec — woke up the main expeditionary team.” Cora recounted. “At the same time we tried hailing the Nexus, then all the other Arks, but we never got an answer before we hit the dark energy cloud.”  
“Your Captain mentioned how it was invisible until you collided with it.” Sada remembered.  
“Completely.” Cora altered the hologram to include the dark energy cloud. The computer had a difficult time generating a simulation of the phenomenon, so Cora wound up zooming in on the Hyperion resting on a bed of blurry orange haze. “If we’d collided with it head-on, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”  
“It’s that strong?” Faaro’s jaw would’ve dropped were he not wearing a helmet.  
“As far as we can tell.” Cora shook her head. “What makes things weirder is that it exhibits no mass shadow even when triggered. It’s like it’s only visible to our eyes and not the rest of reality.”  
Faaro’s brow furrowed at the paradox. How could something so significant leave no trace of its existence?  
“Our first hit knocked out our entire sensor suite; gravity and navigation too.” Cora continued. “We flew by sight until we drifted into the mess you found us in. That forced us to go to reserve power.”  
“Keelah.” Sada sighed. The second-to-last thing a Quarian ever wanted to hear was “go to reserve power.”  
“Alec was undeterred, though, or maybe he was just too stubborn to care.” Cora seemed to relax as she remembered her mentor. “He gave a great speech, though, just before we went down, about how we were going to make history.”  
Cora brought up a crew list. The expeditionary team totaled 10 people, carried to the surface by 2 shuttles. A pair of lights appeared, departing the Hyperion for Habitat-7. She then reset the hologram to Ryder’s helmet feed and hit "play.”  
Ryder’s POV sprung to life as he confirmed his hemet-cam was recording. He couldn’t transmit through the interference caused by the dark energy, but it saved clean to his and his partners’ omni-tools, as did their footage to his.  
The visual swayed as the Kodiak lifted off, and Ryder looked out the window for much of their descent. It was the most… striking thing. The Hyperion was stopped dead in its tracks — almost literally — by celestial gossamer. Scott Ryder made a comment about how strange it was, and conversed briefly with a man named Liam Kosta. Judging by theirs tones of voice, they knew each other well.  
A minute later, Ryder’s shuttle entered Habitat-7’s atmosphere. The hologram was filled with that distinct pinkish orange plasma. Eighteen seconds after that, the shuttle was through. Scott’s view cleared, revealing a massive stone pillar swathed in olive storm clouds. The Pathfinder’s son said it best himself. “This doesn’t look like a golden world from here.”  
Ionization levels rose drastically as the Hyperion’s AI, a SAM, noted the lack of breathable oxygen. That also meant none of the Initiative species could breathe there. Even the Krogan needed 18%.  
Immense shards of rock sped past the shuttle window, but not from any sort of collision or volcanic event. They were floating freely. Behind them were shards of metal. Distinct, distant, angular, rooted to the ground with a teal glow around their bases rendered a wafting miasma by the clouds. Alec Ryder sounded unaffected by the sudden discovery, reminding everyone to stick to first contact protocols.  
Just as he finished his sentence, a bolt of lightning struck the Kodiak. The craft spiraled out of control. The pilots fought desperately, but to no avail. The door broke off, sucking Liam out before anyone could react. He held on long enough to shout for help, and then the shuttle exploded.  
Liam vanished. Scott was launched into a free fall. Passing flaming wreckage and more floating shards of rock on his way down, the junior Ryder only barely managed to survive thanks to his suit’s jump jets.  
Scott his the ground, rolled, rolled some more, screaming all the while. A rock crashed through his faceplate, stopping his descent and stunning him into silence. It was more than enough to elicit a painted wince from the allotted Quarians.  
Panting, choking, Ryder scrambled to repair his faceplate. Thankfully, the hole was small enough for a print-repair from his omni-tool to manage. Any larger and he would’ve been the first Human to die on Habitat-7.  
Ryder took a few minutes for himself, but dangerously close lightning forced him up. He was on a cliff face, looking out over a grey-green swath. Floating rocks punctured the cloud layer, letting sunlight color the sky a more familiar shade of blue. His own QEC communicator was fried, so with no one to tell him otherwise, Ryder started along the cliff.  
“No way this is home.” Ryder muttered that to himself a few times during his trek. He stopped only when he came to a small archway of stone, under which was a waiting Liam.  
The reunion was full of relief, but it was tired, a scant pleasant moment in the throes of Hell. They kept going, past the wreckage of a supply cache and QEC comms array, delving into a shallow cave. Glowing mushrooms greeted them, as well as a lone pristine tree — at least the Habitat-7 analogue of one — in a secluded space.  
“That’s interesting.” Faaro whispered half to himself.  
“Say again?” Sada’Ze caught Faaro’s last syllable.  
“That’s the only plant life of that size so far. Everything else is tiny or dead.”  
“He’s right.” Cora confirmed. “You know why that is?”  
“Um…” Faaro fluttered his fingers. “My guess is the lightning is recent? Heightened electromagnetic activity as a side effect of contact with the dark energy?”  
Cora only nodded, turning back to the hologram.  
Ryder and Liam left the cave, and they watched as three creatures like cetaceans flew past. They looked metallic, and lacked wings. The Humans said nothing, but Faaro pondered. Magnetic levitation incorporated into living tissue? That definitely wasn’t Milky Way.  
The stranded pair of explorers continued on, climbing a steep rock face to places unknown but undoubtedly better than here. Coming over the lip they found a wide patch of ground and a trail further inland, but all that was overshadowed by a distant metal structure. Serendipity suggested it was one of the same ones from the flyover. It appeared physically untouched by the chaos around it, but it spewed an ungodly blue smoke into the sky. Lightning coursed through the emanation as it dissipated into the greater atmosphere.  
One of the humans started to ask what the hell that was, but the structure pulsed, a thin veneer of energy radiated out at breakneck speed, coursing through everything, including them, with a piercing THRUMMMMMM.  
Judging by their reaction, Scott and Liam were unaffected by the blast. The helmet-feed didn’t glitch, nor did their kinetic barriers short out. The latter would prove vital in the coming minutes.  
The path dropped down ahead of them, revealing a crashed Kodiak on the lower floor. It was aflame, and somebody was pinned under it. Ryder did not start forward like Liam, instead pulling him to the ground behind a boulder. He’d seen something.  
Faaro leaned forward, squinting. He felt rocks drop in his stomach. Sada’Ze’s hand moved to between his shoulder blades.  
Ryder poked his head out just barely enough to catch a better glimpse of what’d scared him, and there it was.  
A creature, an alien, was poking around the debris, ignoring the trapped Human. Faaro bypassed the usual shock and surprise that came with encountering new life, deferring instead to analysis, comparison, figuring out what exactly was he was looking at. There’d be time for admiration, or disdain, later.  
Its skin was not skin, but beige-grey chitin rendered orange by the fire. It bulged out from drab green chest and digitigrade leg armor. It wore no gloves or boots, revealing five fingers on each hand and two toes per foot. There was no tail. Its face was flat, and humanoid, but black like anodized metal with eyes to match. Chitin crowded the corners of its face, protruding from the scalp like a built-in helmet. In its hands it carried what was unmistakably a weapon. Two bright green lights adorned it, with several more lights decorating the alien's vest. The alien was without distinguishing markings. No face-paint, clan branding, emblems signifying rank, or anything that could be interpreted as such.  
“Ugly, ain’t he?” Sada asked jokingly.  
“Really ugly.” Cora agreed wholeheartedly.  
The alien kicked at a nearby crate, and another alien came around from behind the Kodiak to join its kin in the violent investigation.  
Ryder looked away to discuss first contact protocol with Liam, only for the duo to be interrupted by gunfire. It sounded nothing like mass-driven rounds, more like the plasma shots from Geth weaponry, but it was definitely a weapon discharging.  
Two weapons.  
Ryder and Liam darted up, pistols drawn on the aliens which had just murdered the trapped Human. There was a brief, loud, exchange of words, theirs and the Humans.  
Faaro considered for a brief second that maybe, just maybe, the aliens thought they were putting the trapped Human out of their misery rather than leaving them to burn to death. But… if that was the case, why inspect the crates first? Why not try to help free the Human?  
The footage clearly showed the aliens firing first; bright orange blips streaked past the camera feed on all sides. Thankfully, Ryder and Kosta were more accurate.  
Both aliens were dropped with three shots to the chest and one to the head. Their armor failed to stop the Humans’ rounds at all, and their chitin seemed worthless as their heads exploded in showers of green fluid.  
“They didn’t have kinetic barriers.” Sada pointed out as Ryder and Liam inspected the corpses.  
“None of them did.” Said Cora.  
“There were more of them?” Asked Joha’Talin.  
“Just watch.” Cora sighed, unable to retreat from the memories playing out on the terminal.  
Scott and Liam inspected the alien corpses, but their scans came back with nothing but question marks. That was strange, especially to Faaro. Chemistry was one of the “Galactic Constants,” as he’d heard it explained. Physics, math, chemistry, and thus biology, all followed certain rules no matter what planet you were on. Even the most basic biological scanner could determine which of the five kingdoms a new life form fell under. Why wasn’t that the case here?  
The Humans didn’t have the luxury to wonder as deeply as Faaro could. Ryder lifted the culprit piece of metal trapping the dead Human, Liam set the body some distance away from the shuttle, and they both tried to take the aliens’ weapons for themselves. They had no trigger, and they were far to heavy to be practical, so they were left behind.  
Liam lead the way briefly, with Scott looking back at the dead Human every couple of steps. Sada’Ze could tell that was the first time he’d fired a weapon in combat.  
It wouldn’t be his last. Scott and Ryder kept going in whatever direction they could manage, but rounding the bend they found themselves on the edge of another group of aliens. There were three this time. One had another Human at gunpoint, with the other two watching from a distance. The Human was pleading for their life, hands above their head, arms shaking with fear.  
The alien fired a single plasma bolt through the Human’s head. Their body dropped limp. Ryder screamed. Liam charged forward, throwing two grenades. The first detonated before it hit the ground, eviscerating the executioner. The other two were hobbled, their lives extinguished fully with a full thermal clip’s worth of shots from Liam and Scott respectively.  
Faaro felt Sada shudder with anger. He leaned back, pulling her arm back to across his shoulders, trying to keep her from following the Humans’ examples for now. Looking at Cora, Faaro saw her gripping the chair so tight she was on the verge of tearing finger-holes in the backing.  
Back in the recording, after firing another round into each alien’s head, Liam pointed out the architecture surrounding the firefight. This wasn’t the large tower spitting smoke, but it had to have been built by the same entities. Flat grey panels at oblique angles, integrated into the rock as though it were the supporting structure for the natural formation. Teal circuitry glowed in the daylight, ebbing and flowing like water at low tide. Ryder’s scan couldn’t determine the material, another oddity, but dated it to between 300 and 400 years old.  
Something clicked in Faaro’s head. “That’s not native.”  
“Huh?” Cora paused the recording almost out of reflex.  
“I’m think that pillar of smoke from earlier is a terraforming complex.” Faaro explained himself. “The dark energy is messing with it, which is why the weather is so… off.”  
“He’s quick on the draw.” Cora noted how cozy the Quarian Pathfinders seemed to be, got the wrong idea, and suppressed a laugh. “What makes you think it isn’t native?”  
“If you have the technology to terraform a planet, by extension you have the technology to fix whatever environmental catastrophe is affecting your homeworld.” Said Faaro. “No species in the Milky Way developed worthwhile terraforming methods until after they discovered the mass effect.”  
“Not to mention those ugly Bosh’Tets look just as out of place as you.” Sada’Ze kept her arm around Faaro as if to challenge Cora’s thinking.  
“Fair point.” Cora played on the recording but did not yet look back at it.  
The sound of more plasma shots drew the Humans away from their current venue. Again, Liam positioned the Human body respectfully. With each step the sounds of battle grew clearer. Battle. That meant two sides. Another type of gunfire manifested. Kinetic-based. Everyone knew the sound of an M-3 Predator. Ryder was carrying one, for goodness’ sake.  
The Humans stopped walking and started running, doing their best to balance caution with urgency. Their pursuit of the noise took them into another cave, this time filled with two different types of technology. There were the angular grey flat panels fitted into the rock, but there was also an array of bulbous green machinery. Much of it seemed half-opened, with smaller machines spread out all over the cave floor and on workbenches. There were even tall fluorescent lamps illuminating portions of the grey tech. It all looked to have been set up in steps.  
“There it is.” Faaro keyed his mic to Sada’Ze. “It’s an expedition to study the other technology.”  
“Hm.” Sada nodded slowly. “I knew I was right to pick you.”  
“Thank you.” Faaro pauses. “I mean no offense, but are you going to take your arm off me any time soon?”  
“Only when you want me to.” Sada’s tone was… different. It threw Faaro for quite the loop. “Joha obviously hasn’t been in here before, so the heater’s not on. I get cold easily; you’re warm. You get what I’m saying yet?”  
“Ah!” Faaro blinked. How foolish of him to assume anything. “Well, thank you. So are you.”  
The hologram brightened as the cave terminated. The opening was guarded by two more aliens, weapons draw, peering down at the fighting below.  
Faaro turned to Cora as he mistook her voice registering in the recording for her speaking aloud.  
Ryder cried out in surprise at Cora’s being alive, to which both aliens turned around at the unexpected noise. Between curses, Liam killed one alien, putting his last shot in the other before reloading. That stunned it just long enough for Ryder to finish it off.  
There was no time to celebrate another small victory. The duo hurried outside into another open area, walled in on all sides but one by sheer slabs of rock. Another Kodiak was in the center of it all, but it wasn’t crashed. Kinetic slugs radiated out from it as more aliens closed in, firing back unfazed.  
Sensing an opportunity, Liam threw another grenade as far as he could, killing two with the airburst and getting the rest’s attention. Not even these things could survive a firefight on both sides.  
The battle ended with Ryder sitting on a freestanding rock, tired but triumphant, only for the rock to come alive. It unfurled in a flash, revealing itself as some kind of four-legged attack creature like a Varren, and pouncing on Scott.  
Ryder fell flat on his back, raising his arms to protect his face but not obstructing the camera’s view. The beast managed one good swipe against Ryder’s chest plate before being pulled off him by an unseen hand. Everyone recognized the purplish warbling of a mass-effect field as it raised the creature high into the sky. A bolt of lightning came down at the perfect time, frying the alien alive. Its corpse fell to the floor, all but disintegrating on impact.  
In the lull, Scott, Liam, and Cora regrouped. From an outside perspective it was definitely odd watching somebody watching their past selves via hologram, especially so shortly after the events had taken place. Judging by the condition of her armor, Cora couldn’t have been off Habitat-7 for long.  
Some discussion was made of a semi-functional shuttle, of resupplied ammunition, medi-gel and Pathfinder Ryder going ahead to scout. All too soon did an alien craft come roaring around the bed. Cora saw it first, pointed towards it, then Ryder’s camera spun around to catch it in full view. It fit the aliens’ aesthetic to a T. To Faaro, it looked like a cargo-lift out of his nightmares. It was big, with a tube extending from a ball mount in each corner. Two more tubes were located at what was most likely the “front” of the thing.  
The craft swooped low to hover some distance away. A slot opened on the side of the thing, and six more aliens and another rock-hound-creature jumped down. Everyone shouted their choice of curse before engaging the aliens as best they could. Cora was a beast all her own, killing three aliens by herself plus the not-Varren with a risky but well-placed shotgun round to the head.  
Liam and Scott killed two of the remaining three, but the last one proved a serious hinderance to their survival. It dropped its current weapon, reaching behind it to bring to bear some sort of heavy gun. It let loose with a plasma staccato, peppering the rocks ahead of it and the walls beyond. Somehow, it missed the Humans and their shuttle.  
All Cora needed from her allies was a distraction. As they kept its attention on them, Cora lifted a boulder with her biotics and sent it careening into the alien, crushing it like a roach.  
The trio waited, and waited, but no more aliens came to reinforce their fallen brethren. Ryder joined his allies as they tried to figure out what to do next.  
As luck would have it, Cora was on the verge of fixing the shuttle’s comms array. With a few minutes’ peace, she was done. SAM added itself to the conversation, routing Scott to his father, who needed all three of them to meet him immediately on a nearby ridge line. According to the Pathfinder, they couldn’t leave until the storm systems were dealt with.  
It was obvious the Humans didn’t want to leave the Kodiak behind, but Alec wouldn’t have said he needed all of them unless he really did need all of them.  
Just before leaving for the next leg of their arduous venture, Scott looked back into the Kodiak and saw another Human corpse. There were no visible external injuries, but he didn’t investigate further.  
The ridge wasn’t far, but the path took the three Humans up several cliffs and across two ravines, all of which were conquered thanks to their suits’ jump jets. Faaro felt his stomach drop whenever Ryder looked down.  
Finally reuniting with Alec, the Human Pathfinder took charge immediately, bringing them up to speed on everything he’d learned since landing. Below them was an entire sprawl of alien structures. Raised greenish platforms and connecting walkways lead up to the smoke-spewing grey tower. Alec confirmed that the aliens they’d been fighting were indeed not native to this planet. They were explorers, like the Initiative, but also much less welcoming to strangers. They were here to study the other alien machinery, which SAM confirmed was a terraforming facility. To make matters simultaneously more convoluted yet digestible, the AI explained that the facility was caught in a feedback loop triggered by the dark energy, sending the planet’s climate into overdrive so long as the tower was active.  
Alec concluded the only way to get off world safely was to “reboot” the tower, breaking the loop and thus calming the weather. How they were to do that remained to be seen. First, they had to get to it.  
In the courtyard between them and the first line of bulbous scaffoldings was an entire cohort of alien guards. Thirty at least, but then again Faaro was always bad at initial estimates. He could count at a glance up to ten individuals before things became guesswork. Between them were pylons, drawing down bolts of lightning which somehow neither startled nor deafened the aliens. Wires led from the pylons to the greater facility. The Quarians in the room were actually impressed. Using the lightning to power their base? Talk about opportunistic.  
Alec took care of that in short order. With the press of a holographic key on his omni-tool, he detonated three charges placed on as many pylons, rendering most of the base without power and converting all the aliens who hadn’t died in the blasts into lightning rods themselves.  
Alec slid down into the thick of it before the echo of the explosions had died down. Scott, Liam, and Cora followed close behind, and together they fought their way up.  
“Keelah.” Sada remarked as she watched Alec move. “He’s good.”  
“He was an N7.” Said Cora. “The best of the best, literally.”  
“I’ve never seen one in action.” The Quarian finally let Faaro go free from her semi-clutches in order to crack her knuckles. “I guess that means all the rumors are true.”  
“What rumors?”  
“Like you haven’t heard them?”  
Cora rolled her eyes and looked back to the hologram. Even if it ended badly, this was her favorite part.  
Alec was a machine, moving faster than any human any of the Quarians had seen, even in fictitious action vids. He repeatedly commanded his team to follow him, to keep moving forward as a defense against being flanked. Their progress was briefly halted by a deadlocked door, only for Alec to smash out a window with his omni-blade and jump through. His only son, Backup Pathfinder, and Security Expert all followed him and his orders to the letter. They were unstoppable with him at the helm, and the aliens were learning that the hard way.  
The fighting ended in spectacular fashion, with Liam using his final two grenades to annihilate a closely-packed company of aliens all clustered around one of slightly different chitin-hue. What was beige was blue, and never once during the fight did they look up from what they were doing. Alec actually pulled the alien away, shot it point-blank in the chest, and threw it over the side of the walkway.  
The alien had been looking down at a terminal, typing away fruitlessly at a teal virtual keyboard. It was part of the terraforming complex, rather than the aliens’ own technology. What had they been trying to do?  
Those observing the hologram, minus Cora who had been there, all recognized the outline of a passageway about the same time as the Humans. Alec mimicked the alien he’d killed, not looking up from the terminal as he worked with SAM to decrypt the digital language. It took some time, but no more aliens came to try and stop them.  
Faaro was keen to spot that last bit. There was no way they’d killed them all, no matter how good Alec was. Had the rest pulled back? Were they regrouping for another attack? Or perhaps more sinisterly, were they watching to see if the N7 could do what they couldn’t?  
Three minutes of Scott Ryder pacing back and forth later, SAM declared its decryption of the system complete. All four humans converged on the door as it opened, a shallow trapezoid receded into the building, revealing a long hallway with a hexagonal hole at one end.  
The feed began to turn fuzzy as they drew closer. The sound cut out. Scott looked back and forth between his father, the hole, Liam, Cora, and the outside. Cora withdrew to the entrance. Alec jumped in without hesitation. Scott followed him down.  
The footage stopped. The hologram deactivated.  
“What happened?” Asked Joha’Talin.  
“I don’t know.” Cora shrugged sadly. “That hole was a gravity well, and one giant unknown. It was the only way in though, so Ryder took Scott and Liam with him as backup.”  
“Leaving you above to cover the way out.” Added Sada’Ze.  
“Bingo.” Cora gave her a thumbs up but would not meet her gaze.  
“So what happened after they went down?”  
“A whole lot of nothing.” Said Cora. “I don’t know how long they were down there, only that it felt like hours, and they never came back up.”  
Faaro knew this was coming. Cora had been talking about them all in the past tense. “What happened?”  
“They succeeded in their mission. That much I know for sure.” Cora blinked the water from her eyes. “They rebooted the tower, but it must have activated a security system or a purge or something like that. I heard this skittering sound, like bugs, coming up from the hole. I ran, put up a barrier. I didn’t even see what hit me, but it knocked me clear of the entrance and almost off the platform entirely.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“It’s fine.” Cora lied. “The weather cleared up enough for me to return to the Hyperion in one piece, and that’s when you showed up.”  
“Could the aliens still be out there?” Sada glanced briefly at the quarters’ still-shuttered window. “They had to get here somehow.”  
“None of us saw any large ships while we were down there.” Cora remembered. “Only the dropships, and they weren’t armed. For once, we’re safe in the void.”  
“Good to know.” Sada rolled her neck, making sure her the bracer-rings weren’t too tight. “I admire what you did down there, but I don’t envy you.”  
“Trust me, neither do I.”  
“Could we copy this data for ourselves?” Joha asked. “We may yet see something that went unnoticed in the heat of the moment.”  
“By all means, Captain.”  
“Thank you, Pathfinder.”  
Cora made a face like she’d bitten her tongue. “I’d like to make one final request, on behalf of the Hyperion.”  
“Please do.”  
“Captain Dunn says it’ll be another hour before Tine 2 is rendered safe for FTL travel strain. Could you stick around until that’s done, then accompany us to the Nexus?”  
“Quarians never leave a wounded ship.”  
“Thank you, Captain Talin.”  
“Of course.”  
“Is there anything else, or may I return to the Hyperion?”  
Joha turned to his own Pathfinders. “Faaro? Sada?”  
Faaro shook his head.  
“I’ve got nothing.” Said Sada. “You did a great thing down there, Cora. Safe travels.”  
“Thanks. The same to you.”  
“Would you like us to escort you back to your shuttle?” Asked Faaro.  
“I can manage.”  
No sooner had Cora left the Captain’s quarters did Kay reach out to the assembled Quarians. “Pathfinders, Acting Captain, I have made an important discovery.”  
“Let’s hear it, Kay.” Joha invited.  
“The Hyperion’s SAM was unique in that it was hard-linked to Alec Ryder’s various mental and nervous implants. In a way, a portion of the AI existed within its current user whilst the rest operated from its core aboard the Human Ark. Alec died before he could transfer his part of the SAM to its next authorized recipient, Pathfinder Harper, thus a key part of the AI was lost suddenly and irrecoverably. In effect, it has been lobotomized.”  
“Shit.” Sada’Ze crossed her arms. Quarians were hardly trusting of AI, but even she knew the ones assisting the Initiative were extremely important. “What does that mean for their colonization efforts?”  
“I do not have enough information to formulate a valid hypothesis.” The VI admitted. “I came to this conclusion only after analyzing the sub-data of Pathfinder Harper’s recording, as well as the other sets of unplayed footage contained on her chip. I tried to contact the Hyperion’s SAM directly for verification, but received no response. Such would occur if the AI were tasked to capacity or severely damaged.”  
“So they might be out of commission?”  
“For a time, possibly.”  
“Wait.” Faaro blinked. “Out of commission? As in, they can’t try to colonize another golden world?”  
“It will be considerably more difficult without an autonomous, adaptable computer system.” Kay elaborated. “Data will have to be input manually, or the AI will have to be wiped and a previous version reinstalled. The blue box will produce a different AI as a result of previous experiences affecting the circuitry.”  
“Why wouldn’t she tell us?” Faaro looked to his shipmates. “We can help with that, right?”  
“We could, but why would they want us to?” Sada wished she still had Faaro’s optimism about species-wide cooperation. “We’re not exactly good when it comes to AI, and if word gets out the Humans have a crippled computer, they might lose standing in the Initiative.”  
“Lose standing?” Faaro was growing increasingly confused, and a little pissed off. “Who cares about standing when nobody has a place to stand?”  
“We don’t know that yet.” Joha reminded him. “The Hyperion might be the only Ark to have encountered problems like these. The Keelah Si’Yah is without issue, and the Nexus, Leusinia, Natanus, and Paarchero may very well have arrived and set up several thriving colonies in the fourteen months preceding us.”  
“We jumped right into helping the Hyperion,” said Sada, “and since we’re still so close to that dark energy we’ll have a hard time getting a message out too.”  
“We’ll just have to go to the Nexus and find out for ourselves.” Said Joha.  
“So… what do we do until then?” Asked Faaro.  
“Captain,” Sada’Ze looked to Joha’Talin, “You can return to the bridge if you’d like. Faaro and I need to go over the footage again.”  
“Very good.” Joha spun on his heel and made his way out the door. “Kay will keep you apprized of any updates. Please have it do the same for me in your reviewing the footage.”  
“Will do.”  
“Carry on.”

———

“Fuck!” Sada’Ze exclaimed as the door shut firm behind the Captain. She turned back to Faaro. “Talk about a rough start, huh?”  
“Yeah.” Faaro whistled long and loud. “I didn’t think it’d be that bad.”  
“I knew something was wrong when they said Pathfinder Harper was coming over, not Ryder.” Sada tugged at her hood. “He wouldn’t skip out on something like this no matter how bad his injuries.”  
“You knew him?”  
“In passing.” Sada went to the central console. “The stick up his ass would make the Turians envious.”  
“Hm.” Faaro tried his best to keep that visual out of his head.  
“Now then!” Sada reactivated the hologram, set the footage back to the starting frame, set the playback speed to 50%, muted it, and hit ‘play.’ “Let’s find the silver lining.”  
There was precious little good to be gleamed from the footage, but there were some details that made the rewatch worthwhile. Most of these details involved the hostile aliens, which Sada and Faaro watched with equal parts fury and fascination. Sada spoke first, pausing the footage after Liam and Scott had killed the first of aliens. “They never behave as if they’re in actual danger. It’s like they don’t acknowledge the threat.”  
“Maybe they can’t?”  
“How do you mean?”  
“This looks like it was a scientific operation. Not a lot of enemies to fight. Maybe they were volunteer guards? Their weapons were accurate but they couldn’t aim them worth a damn.”  
“That’s one possibility.” Sada conceded.  
Faaro paused the footage again as Scott leaned over to try and take one alien’s gun for himself. In the act, he unintentionally got a great closeup of the slain foe’s armor. “Their chitin stops too abruptly for it to be anything but intentional.”  
“We’d see cut-marks,” Sada recalled a similar practice among Vorcha, “wouldn’t we?”  
“Or the chitin grows around it once it’s set in place. Could this be some sort of caste system? They definitely look the part.”  
“They all look the same.”  
Advancing through the footage, the Quarians found Sada more correct than she intended. Every slain alien was identical to the next, like they were all copied from the same template. No distinguishing markings, no differences in their armor, nothing. Even when they shouted something in they language, they all had the same warbling baritone. “Clones?” Faaro eked out.  
“Maybe.” Sada crossed her arms. She was first to point out yet another oddity with the grey terraforming technology. “Look,” she zoomed in on a frame of Scott’s feed as they were taking their last look at the area where they’d kill the next three aliens, “there’s no holes.”  
“Holes?”  
“Bullet holes, plasma burns, whatever. There’s no signs of damage, and I know I saw some plasma shots go wild.”  
The Pathfinder’s point was only reinforced as Scott and Liam hurried through the cave filled with alien tech. The heavily illuminated sections had workbenches nearby, with a modicum of what could only be tools. “They’ve been here a while, so it makes sense they’d try to take samples. You see any burn-marks?”  
Faaro squinted at the still-image. Indeed, there were none. “You’re… very observant.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Whoops.” Faaro rewound the footage to when Scott scanned one of the grey walls. The data flashed onto his HUD. Estimated age based on carbon dating: 300-400 years. “I wanted to say this in the debrief but I didn’t want to drag on. This was built after we left the Milky Way.”  
“It’s odd timing for sure, but does it mean anything beyond that?”  
“Um.” Faaro racked his brain. “Maybe whoever built it is still around? Maybe? Asari and Krogan can live for a thousand years.”  
“Krogan actually can’t die of old age,” Sada corrected him, “but I get what you’re saying.”  
Faaro just had to pursue that line of questioning. “Krogan can live longer than that?”  
“Mhmm.” Sada recalled one of her many visits to Omega. “I met one named Okeer. He claimed to have fought in the Krogan Rebellions.”  
“Krogan aren’t exactly humble.”  
“He wasn’t bragging, that’s for sure.”  
“Anyway.” Faaro took one more look at the frame. “The other thing I can’t figure out is why the metal looks like that?”  
“Still clean after maybe four-hundred years?” Sada asked.  
“That, but also how it’s fitted into everything.” Faaro traced one finger along the edges of a particular panel. He pulled a copy of rat frame aside, then skipped a few seconds ahead to where Scott seemed to have the same idea as Faaro and scanned the rock. “No matter how heavy the environment is, granite doesn’t weather that fast.”  
“Maybe the builders had a thing for preserving the natural formations, so they built as much as they could without disrupting anything? Sorta like how artists combine resin with old wood to make furniture?”  
“Where have you been that has real wood furniture?”  
“I’ll tell you sometime, don’t worry.” Sada winked.  
The Quarians scoured the rest of the footage like hawks, but the remaining objects of interest such as the rock-Varren war beasts, that one alien’s heavy weapon, and the blue alien, were never investigated closely by Scott Ryder. The inner workings of the tower remained a mystery to all but the dead.  
Deactivating the hologram, Sada’Ze ejected the chip and went to the window. She pulled the shutters aside, and there in all its bitter glory was Habitat-7. “I believe Cora when she said Alec and the rest rebooted the tower, but I’m betting that wasn’t the only thing they needed to fix.”  
Faaro joined Sada at the window. From here, it looked like the entire planet was engulfed in a roiling typhoon. “It’s a safe bet.”  
Sada followed the curling storm clouds to the central eye. From there, a thin orange stalk grew out of it, reaching across thousands of cold empty miles to join with the rest of the unnatural mass. “You think that can be fixed?”  
“I hope so.” Faaro peered out at the celestial havoc. “Whatever this is, it can’t be natural. Too many inconveniences on our end.”  
“Maybe it’s something the aliens use to trap invaders?”  
“It’s way too excessive for one ship. This is more like a relativistic jet was frozen in place, maybe. I know that’s way too big, but it’s the closest thing I can think of.”  
“It’s alright. I get it.”  
“Pathfinders.” Kay beeped. “Reports from the Hyperion suggest all necessary repairs are complete. Please anticipate a small, temporary shift in your centers of gravity as we jump to FTL speeds.”  
Faaro and Sada watched the Hyperion drift into view. Kay’s shuttles finally detached themselves from the hull, making their way back to the Keelah Si’Yah. A deep blue glow overtook the aft half of the Humans’ Ark like a miniature supernova. In the blink of an eye, the ship vanished into a streak of light stretching from one end of the universe to the other, all without a sound.  
Kay announced all shuttles had returned safely to their host Ark. With the bay doors sealed, the Keelah Si’Yah angled itself to match the Hyperion’s course. The ODSY Drive tines redeployed to their full breadth, a general alarm was sounded, and they plunged back into the aether.

———

The Archon watched with unblinking eyes as one ship, then the other, vanished in flashes of light. Cowards. Defilers. Disgusting. All of them.  
The Archon watched the skies a minute longer, but with no further signs of foolish invaders coming to hinder his work, he turned away and stepped purposefully into the vault.  
A dozen Chosen accompanied him. None of them knew what true greatness they were due to witness.  
One such Chosen carried the Archon’s replication probe, a high honor, and held it out to their great leader. The Archon took it, sent it floating ahead of him, and in short order an orange hologram came into being.  
Four individuals, at first. One turned back, likely too overwhelmed by the power before them. The other three, foolhardy to the death, continued ahead. One by one, they jumped into the gravity well, but that was where the hologram stopped.  
The Archon waved, and another of his Chosen came to his side. They carried a sizable stone, which they held out to the Archon like it was the key to all their endeavors.  
The Archon took the stone, tested its heft, and lobbed it into the yawning hexagon. It fell, untouched by the gravity well. No lights made its descent visible. Not even the sound of it crashing into the floor reached the Archon’s ears.  
The Archon growled, turned away, and departed the vault.  
All this time, all this effort, useless.  
They had to keep searching.  
Although, perhaps now, they had a new avenue of opportunities to explore.


End file.
